A nicer day again with some sun + no wind to speak of. I started a little after 9 + cycled to Forest Road, Wellwood (Louisa1, sore back) + Curror Street. Then I motored to Beechwood2 + stopped Minty’s3 hydra[…]. Dav.4 had diagnosed empyema but he was wrong.5 From there I went to Yair + Bogle House, returning by Beechwood + Yarrow Terrace. Saw Roy Dees + his father6 at 4 in surgery + then motored over to Lilliesleaf to see old Leitch7 + back in time for concert. Helen8 had her “Brownies” in9 + she + Barb.10 (in Girl Guides uniform) went along to County Hotel.
1 Louisa Jane ‘Louise’ Roberts, later Rutherford (1906-1982), one of Dr Muir’s granddaughters.
2 Beechwood, Linglie Road, NNE of Philiphaugh Saw Mill, see Ordnance Survey 25 inch Selkirkshire Sheet XI.8, published 1899.
3 Miss Jemima Colville (1857-1932), presumably known as Minty, was occupier of a Villa and ground ‘Beechwood’, Linglie Road, Selkirk [1921 Valuation Roll, VR011700009-/326, Selkirk County, page 326 of 611]; born Lanarkshire, she was the daughter of David Colville, steel maker, and Jane Colville née Barr, and died 1932 at the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries, usual residence Beechwood, Selkirk.
4 David Charteris ‘Dav.’ Graham (1889-1963), M.B., medical practitioner and Dr Muir’s business partner.
5 Empyema is the collection of pus in the space between the lung and the inner surface of the chest wall (pleural space) and the word that the Editor has been unable to transcribe is presumably the treatment Dr Graham had specified.
6 Robert Irwin Richardson ‘Roy’ Dees (1904-about 1988), son of Robert Irwin Dees (1872-1923) and Edith Mary Boileau Dees née Henderson.
7 Bella Scott Leitch was tenant of a house and garden at Lilliesleaf 1920-1922 [sources include 1922 Valuation Roll, VR011600033-/887, Roxburgh County, page 887 of 993].
8 Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and sometime housekeeper.
9 The Brownies had started in 1914 and, though it is not known how long they had been operating at Selkirk, they are still enough of a novelty to Dr Muir in 1921 for him to put them in quotation marks!
10 Andrina Henderson ‘Barbara’ Roberts, later Twhigg (1902-1996), Dr Muir’s eldest grandchild.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/24, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1921]
Editor’s note: there was enough in this entry that could be improved that it was decided to republish.
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 